[ANN] relief: a demo of a minimal Squeak installer/starter
Craig Latta
craig.latta at netjam.org
Wed Feb 12 08:08:35 UTC 2003
Hi--
Please take a look at:
http://netjam.org/relief
It shows how you can start Squeak by simply visiting a web page. I'd
love to hear comments!
It only works on win32 currently. I was going to wait until I'd ported
it to all the other Squeak host platforms before mentioning it, but what
the heck. :) I expect someone else to have done this within ten minutes.
:)
The act of visiting the page invokes Alejandro's "fractal plants"
snapshot locally, with PhiHo Hoang's modular version of the virtual
machine ("MobVM"), via an automatically-run loader of size 24KB (a very
portable 200-line C program).
I can imagine an extensible image starting up instead; I don't think
there'd be much more time or space involved. I think something like this
demo should be how Squeak is distributed and activated. I think it'd be
a lot easier for neophytes to deal with than the current mechanisms,
since it hides all the platform-specific details of archival, transfer,
and execution behind a web page hit.
It's called "relief" in commemoration of the way I feel when Squeak
starts and the host platform vanishes. :)
I did this work as part of a larger effort to produce a minimal
snapshot (it's my current role as a Squeak "Guide"). That project is
called "squat" (as in the American expression "diddly-squat", meaning
nothingness :). If you have an interest in minimal snapshots, please
join the Squat mailing list; see
http://netjam.org/squat
I'm hoping to capitalize on the current flurry of energy here on the
main list. :)
Thanks!
-C
--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
craig at netjam.org
www.netjam.org/resume
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
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